Trump is considering a new “travel ban” aimed at the migrant caravan

Members of a migrant caravan walk into the interior of Mexico after crossing the Guatemalan
border on October 21, 2018, near Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico. John Moore/Getty Images The Trump
administration is reportedly considering using executive action to prevent people traveling in the
migrant “caravan” from presenting themselves for asylum at the US-Mexico border.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are developing a plan
that mimics the “travel ban” from 2017, the San Francisco Chronicle and other media outlets
reported Thursday night: President Donald Trump would issue a proclamation preventing a certain
“class” of people from being allowed to enter the US. It’s not yet clear how that “class” would be
defined, but it would target either the “caravan” in particular or asylum-seekers more broadly. It’s
legal to seek asylum without papers, and the US government is obligated under international law not
to send anyone back to a country where they are at risk of persecution due to race, nationality,
religion, political opinions, or membership in a social group. But the Trump administration appears
to be laying the groundwork for a plan that would simply bar people from entering the US —
presumably keeping Central American asylum-seekers on the Mexican side of the border .The US
government has already been restricting access at official US border crossings and requiring would-
be asylum-seekers to wait before being allowed to enter, claiming space constraints at ports of
entry.

The “caravan” of about 5,000 people, which originally set off from Honduras on October 12, is still
weeks from the US-Mexico border. It is not going to arrive before the November 6 midterm
elections, and it is already shrinking as caravan members decide to apply for asylum in Mexico or
return to their home countries instead. However, the Trump administration is in overdrive to
respond to what Trump has called a “National Emergency.” The US is already sending 800 troops to
the US-Mexico border to provide logistical support for Customs and Border Protection agents. The
proposal (or proposals) reported Thursday night are still under discussion. It’s not clear when or if
the White House will act on them. If Trump does take executive action to ban entries in the name of
stopping the caravan, though, it’s almost certainly going to attract another court challenge over
executive authority to stop people from entering the US — and may well prevent many, many
Central American asylum-seekers who aren’t in the caravan from being allowed into the US to make
their case.

Here’s what we know:

The first step in the plan would be to publish a regulation barring asylum claims from anyone who’s
subject to a presidential ban issued under section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. That
provision, also used in the travel ban, allows the president to “suspend the entry” of a “class of
aliens” if he determines their entry would be “detrimental to the interests of the United States. ”The
Trump administration has already been working on such a regulation as part of a broader package of
asylum regulations being reviewed at DOJ and DHS. Instead of going through the normal process
(which takes several months), however, the regulation barring asylum for banned immigrants would
be issued as an “interim final rule” — allowing the government to enforce it while it goes through
the review process.
The regulation, which could be issued as soon as Friday, would not change anything on its own. It
would have to be issued before the ban itself went into effect. As early as Monday or Tuesday, the
president could sign a ban that refused entry to some class of people under the 212(f) provision. At
that point, those people would also not be allowed to apply for asylum.

But there are still a lot of unknowns in this process. Here’s what we don’t know:

Whether other, broader executive actions are also being considered. The New York Times reported
that plans were under development to “close the southern border” — which implies refusing not
only asylum-seekers, but all people or goods seeking to cross from Mexico into the US. This is a
much broader proposal than the one the San Francisco Chronicle reported on (and the one Vox has
heard about). It’s not at all clear what the legal vehicle for such a move would be.

Exactly who would be banned under this plan. The ban could cover only members of the caravan
currently traveling through southern Mexico (although it’s not clear how the government would
know who exactly had been part of the caravan and who wasn’t). Alternatively, it could cover all
asylum-seekers from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador — the “Northern Triangle” countries
driving asylum-seekers to the US — or even all asylum-seekers generally.

How much advance notice the government would give before implementing the ban, and when it
would go into effect. Thousands of Central American asylum seekers present themselves to US
officials every month. A broad ban would be far harder to enforce than even the first version of the
travel ban in January 2017 — whose rollout was famously disastrous. Without training time, this ban
could make that one look like a smooth and efficient government operation.

Who, if anyone, has signed off on this plan, and whether it will ultimately be approved.

Whether the ban could survive a legal challenge in upholding the final version of Trump’s travel ban
in June in the case Trump.In Hawaii, the Supreme Court (in an opinion written by Chief Justice John
Roberts) made it clear that the president’s power to ban immigrants under 212(f) is extremely
broad. At the same time, however, the opinion pointed to the national security reasons offered for
the ban, and the careful process by which it was drafted, as evidence that it was legitimate
government policy and not just driven by the whims of Trump.It’s hard to imagine a caravan ban
would look as well-thought-out — not least because there’s no evidence that anyone in the caravan
poses a security threat, or that the caravan, should it arrive at the border, wouldn’t just line up at a
port of entry to seek asylum legally.The right to seek asylum isn’t just a matter of international law
but of the 1980 Refugee Act. Whether US law allows a president to refuse someone the power to
seek asylum through a proclamation isn’t entirely clear. It’s a question that the Supreme Court will
almost certainly have to consider if this plan is put into effect.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there are few pros and cons that could be extracted from the article. The pros are as
more immigrants enter the workforce, they will pay taxes and social security to replace the money
lost by aging baby boomers. Second, in 2014, immigrant women had 44 percent more children than
native born American women, which will become tax payers to support the current working
population during retirement. In addition, college-degreed immigrants generate over $100k more in
revenue than they receive over their life. Also, immigrants living in America illegally cost less than
legal immigrants due to lack of eligibility for many government programs. The cons on the other
hand are immigrants will hurt job prospects for native-born workers. Second, the wages for unskilled
labor jobs are lowered due to illegal immigrants by 3 to 8 percent. Lastly, If the U.S. granted illegal
immigrants amnesty, their costs to society would double.